


I Have Loved the Stars Too Fondly

by PoliticalPadmé (magnetgirl)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Bounty Hunters, F/F, Female Relationships, Original Character(s), Self-Harm, Space Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-23 01:13:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8308075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetgirl/pseuds/PoliticalPadm%C3%A9
Summary: Love, loss, lonelinessSand, stars, sorrowHarm, heal, hope-little Skywalker things





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anaraine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anaraine/gifts).



Anakin was eleven. Shmi hasn’t seen him since he’d left Tatooine two years earlier but she just pictured him taller. Taller and cleaner and more healthy and more safe and surrounded by stars. He was somewhere better than here and someone better than her. And that’s all that mattered. 

\---

Olive was gone for months at a time. Once nearly a year. Such is the life of a smuggler. Hopping from job to job, planet to planet, danger to danger -- bed to bed. She lived a life inverse to Shmi’s. Olive was free in every sense of the word.

This time she’d been gone almost half a year and she pulled Shmi into a hungry kiss before the door finished closing behind them. She wasted no time maneuvering Shmi toward what passed for her bedroom, pulling her blouse up, away from her waist and over both their heads, as they went. A low growl escaped as she cupped a breast, rounder than she remembered, and guided her down into the pillows. Shmi yanked at the laces at Olive’s waist as she fell back onto the bed but Olive batted her hands away. “You,” she commanded in the same low growl. Olive slipped her hands under Shmi’s skirt as she dropped back in acquiescence, and anticipation. “I missed you,” Olive murmured against Shmi’s ear as she nibbled it. Her warm breath tickled as she peppered Shmi with kisses and bites, traveling down her neck, flicking a nipple with her tongue as her fingers found their destination and Shmi arched upwards suddenly. Olive smiled and continued to kiss down past Shmi’s breasts to her round belly. . .

Olive started at the fullness of Shmi’s stomach -- like her breasts it was rounder than she remembered, in fact it was. . . Olive sat up straight. “You’re--!”

Shmi gasped as Olive pulled away, leaving her abruptly empty. “...Yes,” she answered, between breaths. Olive stared, then stood, and started pacing wildly. The room was barely five steps across; she looked like a trapped animal. Shmi gathered a blanket around herself as she sat up, still shuddering from the aborted activity. 

“Who do I have to kill?” demanded Olive. 

“No one,” Shmi asserted. She pressed a hand between her legs to force herself to calm down so she could focus on Olive. “It’s not like that.”

Olive stopped pacing and turned wide eyes to Shmi. “Even if you wanted this you’re a slave, Shmi. You can’t give consent.”

Shmi blinked, as if she’d been slapped. The last vestiges of pleasure and desire fled and she felt cold, and frozen in place. “I was born a slave,” she said, quietly, tonelessly, “but I never felt ashamed before now.” 

Olive closed her eyes and returned to pacing. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I think you should go.”

Olive shook her head. “Shmi, I’m sorry. I didn’t… I was surprised and… I shouldn’t -- but -- Look, I want to help.”

Shmi stood, the blanket covered her like a cloak and she looked -- absurdly -- almost regal. “I want you to go.”

“Shmi, please,” Olive started but Shmi shoved past her and opened the door. 

“Go,” she repeated. Olive sighed, but picked up the boots she’d kicked off and walked to the door. 

“Please,” she said, again, when she reached it. Her eyes were filled with tears.

Shmi placed a hand on her swollen stomach. “I don’t want your help,” she lied. She’d been dreaming of Olive’s return, of plotting the baby’s escape, of not being alone in her terror, or her hope. Olive was right, she hadn’t given consent, it had simply happened. Shmi couldn’t explain any of it, but she knew the baby deserved a better life than she could give him. Olive’s life was barely better, though. Maybe worse. What had she been thinking. She closed the door on Olive, ignored the woman’s cries, the banging, the pleading. She returned to bed, pulled the blanket over her head, and curled into the dark to hide from everything. 

Olive was only the latest disappointment. No one would ever be good enough again. No one could ever live up to her. 

\---

The box had been picked through, at least half of what was left her had been taken by the many different authorities -- and “authorities” -- enlisted to process the bequest. Slaves weren’t allowed to inherit anything of value so the money and what property had been left after the explosion were repossessed by what passes for the legal system on Tatooine. None of the jewelry or clothing listed on the manifest remained. Even the “unspecified spices” were gone. But no one wanted “indeterminate machinery and parts” so they were delivered as intended to one Ms. Shmi Skywalker. 

Shmi had no use for the bits and pieces of droids and ships and who knows what. She’d long since given up her dream of flying in space. But she carefully catalogued each object in the box. Name. Purpose. Condition. And notes. Where it was found. How it was received. What it was used for, regardless of what it was designed to be used for. Cass was brilliant at repurposing parts. Shmi held each object for as long as it took to remember every detail. She cried, often. A few times she fell asleep clutching a pipe or tube or light. She wore the titanium knuckles -- part of a droid’s skeleton -- for a week. She may have worn them forever if they hadn’t started to rub her hand raw. It wasn’t the pain she minded. Actually, she liked it. But the itch was unbearable. Plus it made her hand heavy and slow and she was already in trouble for being broken hearted. Slaves weren’t allowed to mourn any more than they were allowed to inherit. 

_ “Shmi? Is it really you, little sky walker? You’ve grown.” _

_ Shmi felt her skin grow red under the woman’s scrutiny. It wasn’t unpleasant, however. It felt right.  _

Shmi closed her eyes tightly but of course she couldn’t look away from the memory.  _ Cass shifting her bag so they could clasp hands. _ Shmi shook her head but the vision only shifted. Now they were  _ in bed, those hands exploring each other’s bodies. The suns were low in the sky outside the window.  _ Shmi cried out, in the past or present, she wasn’t sure. Maybe both. In pleasure then. . .

_ Cass’s long dark fingers tracing the scars of a childhood in the kitchens, knife marks and oil splashes cut across Shmi’s skin and Cass pressed her lips to each one.  _

In pain now, remembering she was gone, dead, forever, lost. She would never return to steal Shmi away from this nothing world. As tears slipped down her cheeks, Shmi traced the scars on her arms with her own fingers. What if she ran away now, smuggled herself into a shuttle. . . how far into the sky would she get before the chip activated? If she exploded, too, could they be together again? Or would Cass be stardust and Shmi remain sand?

_ “No one calls me that anymore.”  _

_ She said it conversationally but Shmi was flustered. Was it a rebuke? How should she answer? Apologize? Or laugh? Or. . . “What do they call you?” she asked, finally, simply.  _

_ “Cassiopea,” her companion answered breathily. Shmi’s eyes were drawn to her lips, marking each of the five syllables, and her stomach lurched with a feeling she barely understood. She blinked and raised her eyes to find gold eyes watching her, too.  _

_ “...Fits you,” she murmured as the tall woman closed the space between them with a kiss almost violent in its suddenness. Shmi disappeared into the embrace, swallowed whole, only to return when the pirate abandoned her for the sky.  _

Cassiopea had always promised to return with enough capital to buy Shmi’s freedom, but the money went into the ship, the routes, bribes, wine, bail money too often. Shmi didn’t mind. Cass brought her gifts from other planets. She shared her bed, told her stories, her touch was gentle unless Shmi asked for something else. 

_ “Am I better yet?” she asked, one night, when they lay curled into each other. Outside the city, where only sand touched them and all they could see were stars. Cass was very seldom tentative and vulnerable hardly ever. But in this moment she was both.  _

_ Shmi brushed her lips softly. “No,” she answered, smiling. “You were already perfect.” _

And as often as she left, she always came back. 

Until now. 

Shmi was gripped with a sudden rage. She upended the table, sending indeterminate machinery and parts to all corners of the room. One spiky round circuit bounced off the far wall and flew back to hit her shoulder. Shmi glanced at her arm, at the small divot where it hit, where a bruise would form. She snatched the piece off the floor, threw it hard against the wall, and turned into the curve so it hit her arm in the same area. And then again, and again, and again, until finally it drew blood and she scratched at the line, raked her nails down to widen the wound and let the pain steal her consciousness. With a gasp she sank to the floor, blood and sand mingled as she dreamt of stars exploding. 

She was more alone than she’d ever been. And she knew it was forever. No one would ever be good enough again. No one could ever live up to her. 

\---

Shmi was eleven. Probably. Maybe? No one had written down her birthday. No one cared about her birth, except that it meant her mother could return to court. Shmi didn’t know her mother well. She’d been a dancer until pregnancy sent her to the kitchen, and she went back as soon as she could. Shmi didn’t know her father at all. The dregs of society that passed through the crime lord’s conclave were only rivaled by those that flooded the palace of their nearest rival, Jabba the Hutt. He could be any of them, long gone, or long dead, and what would it matter if they knew. Shmi didn’t belong to him, or her mother, or herself. She was born a slave, chipped when she was five days old. She grew up in the kitchen, under the watchful eyes of the server droids, and was put to work as soon as she could hold a spoon. Her mother wouldn’t let her learn to dance -- the only proof Shmi had the woman cared about her at all, but also, once she was old enough to understand, the only proof she needed -- so she cooked and cleaned and when she was nine, give or take, she became the messenger. 

This was the best job Shmi could imagine. She got to go everywhere! All over the compound -- the court, the sleeping rooms, the stores, the dressmaker’s, the library, so many places she’d only imagined from behind closed doors.  Now she was invited in. And some days she even went out. To market, or the guards tower, and once, to the palace. She was sent because she was expendable, used to make a statement with her insignificance. She might have died but it was the most exciting day of her life thus far. 

Her favorite place to go was the sky port. She would climb up the sand colored fence that surrounded the landing pits and watch the ships come and go for hours. They were mostly airbuses, running mostly regular. But the odd pleasure barge or personal shuttle came through. And even the airbuses were bastions of criminal activity. Shmi imagined stowing away, only the chip stopped her trying. The stars beckoned but she was stuck in the sand. 

“Ai-oh, who’s this?”

Shmi glanced back at the voice. People only ever noticed her get her to do something for them or maybe to chase her away. Mostly she was invisible, and liked it that way. She turned carefully on the balls of her feet, ready to bolt if she needed, but the voice didn’t belong to a slaver or a guard. 

It belonged to a goddess. At least that’s how Shmi saw it. The girl was probably only a handful of years older than Shmi, but she was so tall Shmi expected she could reach out and pluck her down from her perch on the wall. Her skin was dark as night and with her long hair tied into a hundred tiny braids adorned with sparkling white beads she was like Shmi’s beloved sky transformed into a person. 

“How’d you get up there, girl?”

Shmi shrugged. “Climbed.”

The girl laughed. It sounded like music. “She says as if easy.” Shmi shrugged again, and blushed, for no reason she understood. 

“What do you see up there you don’t see down here?”

Shmi frowned. She could answer any number of mostly true things. She climbed up to watch the ships, and pretend she was going on one. To see the stars and imagine what it must be like to walk among them. If she lay back, and it was dark enough, she could only see stars. “I like to see where the ships go,” she said finally. 

“Mmm,” the goddess nodded. “And where do they go?”

Shmi looked up to the sky. “Somewhere better.”

“Ai, little sky walker, you might think so.” 

Shmi bit her lip, uncertain how to answer. The goddess pointed to a ship barely bigger than the pantry Shmi slept beside. “That’s mine. Maybe you’d like to come fly with me.”

Shmi’s eyes sparkled with the dream she wasn’t allowed to imagine. “I’d like to more than anything,” she answered earnestly, then looked down at the pale dust that was her reality. “But I can’t.”

The tall woman’s golden eyes grew wide. “You’re a slave?” she asked in wonder. 

“I’m a person,” Shmi countered, eyes now flashing in anger. 

The goddess drew closer. “What’s your name, girl?”

“Shmi.”

“Shmi. Here.” She dropped a small rock into the girl’s hand. “That’s from. . .” She pointed to cluster of stars in the east. “There. If I can’t bring you to the stars, I’ll bring the stars to you.” Shmi closed her hand over the stone. It felt like magic. “I’ll see you again, Shmi Sky Walker.”

She was more than halfway back to her ship before Shmi found her voice again. “Wait!” The goddess-captain paused and turned to see Shmi jump down and run to catch up. “Who are you?”

The woman looked away. “I’m called Ana,” she answered quietly, into the wind. “But when I come back I’ll be someone better.” She disappeared into the ship and Shmi retreated to the wall, to watch the ship lift up and fly away. She stayed, watching, until morning. 

Something had shifted, inside her and around her. Shmi couldn’t explain it, but nothing was the same. Not even the stars. Nothing and no one would ever be good enough again. No one could ever live up to her. 


End file.
